The present invention relates generally to a personal information system and a method for obtaining personalized information regarding television programming.
With the advent of cable, satellite, and other systems providing television viewers with a large number of television channels to choose from, often in excess of 150, "channel surfing" is a widely practiced activity. While "surfing," viewers look at small segments of programs to determine their desirability, often looking at many program segments until finding a suitable program. To compound the problem of choosing among the vast amount of available programming, the viewer must also view commercials and wait for them to end to determine the content or the type of program on that channel.
Often, the time spent channel surfing causes the viewer to begin viewing a desired program several minutes into the show, which is not the most desirable circumstance. Thus, it would be advantageous for the viewer to be able to minimize the time required to find the type of programming he wants to watch, including categories of programming such as drama, music, history, etc.
Conventional systems blank the reception of television shows based on the content of the received programming. U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,584 issued to Elam et al. discloses a video and audio blanking system. In Elam et al., a selector at the television receiver controls the content of programming which may be viewed or heard using a rating system. The ratings may be the well-known "G", "PG", and "R" ratings typically used for movies. According to Elam et al., a television user can select a rating level and whenever programming having that level or a higher level is received, the receiver will blank the audio or video signals or both.
Although the television editing system disclosed in Elam et al. is useful to blank incoming signals based on the content and type of program, it would be advantageous for the television to also assist the viewer in selecting programs of the desired type.
PCT application number PCT/GB82/00352 of Chard discloses active or passive editing and selection of television programming that can depend on the type or content of the programming. Chard discloses active program type selection using continuous cyclic sampling of the received channels to find a program meeting the selected type criteria. Chard discloses an "active selection" scheme for finding a desired program in which the system automatically scans the channel controls for a program of the desired "type". For "passive selection," the viewer manually scans the channels and the system blanks all programs of types not desired, so the viewer only accesses channels with desired types of programs.
Thus, though Chard performs editing based on program type, the Chard system does not provide a summary or listing of all suitable programming that meets the viewer's selection criteria. Additionally, in both active and passive editing, the Chard system selects only one channel for viewing without informing the viewer of equally suitable alternate channels or programs.
Conventional systems also provide a scrolling program guide to viewers, showing, for example, in one-half hour increments what is available on every channel that the programming provider provides, even if the viewer does not subscribe to the programming for all channels. While such program guides provide valuable information to viewers, they cannot be modified. For example, a viewer cannot set parameters for the type and time frame of desired programming information, so the conventional program guides generally provide too much information and are often not particularly helpful in allowing the viewer to focus on programming of a desired type.
It is therefore a primary desire of the present invention to provide a system and method for controlling the channels or programs that a television receiver displays for viewing, based on the program type. The system and method should also provide a display listing all available programming of the type desired.
Another desire of the present invention is to provide a personal television editing system in which viewers can select whether or not to receive specific types of programming.
Other desires of the present invention are to provide a method of automatically selectively editing the type of programming that a viewer can watch, to effect control of the television display and sound automatically, and to provide a system and method for effecting such automatic control according to the selection of several different program content designations or codes.
A further desire of the present invention to provide a personal television editing system and method that allow a television viewer to reduce the number of channels that must be searched by actual viewing to find the desired program in which the viewer has an interest.
Additional objectives, features, and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the written description and appended claims hereof, as well as the appended drawings.